One and Done? I'm Stunned

Really now.

I just read an article by Mitch Albom about how the NBA's draft entry rules "make a joke out of college." An espn.com article yesterday whines that top players at top programs are just using college basketball as an extended job interview.

As Bill Cosby might say, "Come on, people."

Big-time college basketball is -- and has always been -- all about the money. How much can you get, and how quickly, before demand for your services is extinguished? Whether it's players taking green handskakes from alumni, coaches making promises to players and schools then jumping when something better comes along, or conferences stacking the NCAA tournament to put the majority of CBS' money in the minority of hands, the "big time" in college basketball is a lesson in self-interest. Do what's best for you, becasue if you don't nobody will.

Now the media is up in arms because the best players are gaming the system for their own benefit? I say it's about time. Players -- particularly poor, city-dwelling, (largely) African-American players -- have been providing free entertainment for corporate junkets and subsidizing scholarships for upper-middle-class white women for decades. If the system is suddenly skewing a little bit in their favor, good. It's about time.

What's especially encouraging about Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, OJ Mayo, Derrick Rose, and the rest of them jumping to the NBA is the attention their one-year sojourn in the land of Dick Vitale is drawing to the contrasts between the "big time" and the rest of the sport. John Calipari ingratiates himself into the seemy underbelly of the Chicago AAU scene to get a player for one year, then parlays that player into a title game and a contract extension. Scott Sanderson and Rick Byrd spend a decade shepherding former NAIA powers into respectable "low-majors," all the while graduating players, turning down offers of "bigger and better," and keeping the school off both the police blotter and the NCAA radar screen.

UCLA and USC can have their one-hit wonders. Give me four years of Eddie Ard and Justin Hare every time. They are what make college basketball fun -- and worth writing about.